Are Rumors of Email’s Death Exaggerated?

Ray Ozzie is in the current Information Week saying that email is dead and instant messaging rules. I dunno, given that I have gone the other way. I have largely stopped using instant messaging because I found it too intrusive, I missed having integrated archives, foldering, and search — and I got tired of the instant-ness of it. Yes, you can treat it like email and respond at your leisure, but there is an expectation of fast response that nags at me — the word “instant” helps — unlike in email.

Citing his own children, Ozzie said younger PC jockeys are used to downloading what they want and need and using it at will. They also reject some of the tools their parents and older siblings relied on.

They have “given up on e-mail. E-mail is dead,” Ozzie said speaking in Orlando Tuesday at Lotusphere 2005 during a Future Of Notes panel . “They use instant messaging as their e-mail mechanism. They leave their computers on” and people wanting to contact them send IM, Ozzie said. “E-mail is where you get messages from people you don’t want to talk to [like] teachers and parents.”

Comments

Ray has an axe to grind. Groove Networks markets solutions looking for problems. It is software that is universally reviled by all who have used it.
The biggest market for IM is erotic chat. Maybe Ray should be monitering the family traffic logs a bit more closely.